Hot Spot: Selling Green

With a new trend of middle-class Asians setting out to explore their continent, the number of tourists in Asia is set to double over the next 15 years. Once travel patterns, disrupted by the SARS outbreak, return to normal, the impending surge will have two possible outcomes: a belly-pouch-wearing human deluge could lay waste to the land, bringing commercialization and environmental destruction to the hinterlands; or responsibly managed tourism could actually help protect the environment and encourage steady economic growth. "Tourism, more than any other activity, can contribute to environmental conservation," says Ian Kean, executive director of the APEC International Center...